The top two seeds in the girls’ singles progressed to the third round of Australian Open 2018 with contrasting results on Tuesday.
Chinese top seed Xinyu Wang was pushed to the limit by American Peyton Stearns but overcame the challenge with a 6-3 5-7 6-4 victory, while No.2 seed En Liang was largely untroubled in her 6-2 6-1 win over Anri Nagata.
American No.12 seed Elysia Bolton, who defeated Japan’s Himari Sato 6-4 6-1 in just under an hour, advanced to her second consecutive Grand Slam third round.
After a quarterfinal showing at the US Open, in which she defeated the highly talented Marta Kostyuk, the 17-year-old has set her sights on a much bigger result here.
“It (US Open performance) gave me a lot of confidence and I set a goal for myself at the start of the year to win the Aussie Open,” Bolton said. “It gave me a lot of confidence that I could do it now.
“It was so fun watching her (Kostyuk) do so well because it was like, ‘I can do that’.”
Despite playing under the United States banner, there is an Australian flavour to Bolton, who was born in Sydney and lived in the country until just prior to her second birthday.
Bolton hopes to gain a higher pro ranking in 2018 before she heads to the University of Los Angeles California (UCLA) later in the year.
“I want to go to college with a ranking of around 400. That would be the minimum,” she said.
The American will next play Clara Burel after the Frenchwoman upset No.6 seed Joanna Garland 6-3 6-1.
On the local front, 16-year-old Australian Amber Marshall claimed a 6-2 6-4 win over Russian Alina Charaeva in 52 minutes to book her spot in the third round of a major in her first ever main draw.
In the boys’ singles, top seed Timofey Skatov was clinical in his 6-1 6-2 victory over 16-year-old Australian wildcard Stefan Storch.
Despite the one-sided scoreline, the match was actually a lot closer with all of the games in the opening set being won to 30 or going to deuce.
Storch showed flashes of brilliance with a dazzling one-handed backhand but admitted he was a little nervous about playing against such a quality player at such an important event.
In other results, it was a good day for the other seeds with No.5 Hugo Gaston, No.7 Sebastian Korda, No.12 Alexey Zakharov and No.14 Ondrej Styler all progressing through to the final 16.
The only upset of the day was South African qualifier Philip Henning stunning Brazilian ninth seed Thiago Seyboth Wild 6-4 6-4.